Arduino LED Color Picker

After experimenting with an RGB LED for a while, I became interested in the idea of using a color gradient to control the LED. I search around a bit for a color gradiant library and finally settled on colorpicker, a subproject of colorchooser (scroll down the page for colorpicker). This library is surprisingly easy to integrate with and allows you to receive color events in real-time, as you drag the mouse around the gradient.

Since this solution is written in Java and uses the same serial library (RXTX) as Arduino, it will run on any platform that Arduino supports (Windows/Mac/Linux etc.). I have included RXTX libraries in the download so it will run on any of these platforms, out-of-the-box (box not included).

Here's a quick video of the application in action:



The application consists of Java application that serves as the colorpicker interface and an Arduino Sketch that receives RGB colors and applies them to the PWM pins

The basic process flow of the Java application is as follows:

- Open serial port to Arduino

- Initialize colorpicker component and register an event handler

- (In forever loop)

- Wait for colorpicker event.

- Send color to Arduino

- Wait for reply from Arduino (ACK)

The colorpicker runs in a separate thread and sends color events to the main thread.

The Java application sends the RGB colors in a sequence of four bytes: red, green, blue and a EOT byte. The EOT byte signals the end of a color sequence and instructs the Arduino to process the color. Since a byte has 256 values and we need all of them for the color values, I created a escape byte (0x2) to distinguish the EOT byte (0x1) from the color value (0x1). Any time a color value of 0x1 or 0x2 is sent, it is preceded by a escape byte and XOR'd with 0x20. When the Arduino receives the data via Serial.read(), it performs a corresponding XOR operation to un-escape the bytes.

Once the Arduino processes the color, it sends an ACK byte back to the Java application, so that it can send the next color. Without the ACK byte, we run the chance of overflowing the buffer by sending color events faster than the Arduino can process them.

Here's the Arduino sketch:

// Adjust as necessary to match your RGB LED.  Remember to only use the PWM pins
int redPin = 11;
int greenPin = 10;
int bluePin = 9;

// Indicates what color we are reading next; 0 = red, 1 = green, 2 = blue
int pos = 0;

// red PWM value
int red = 0;
// green PWM value
int green = 0;
// blue PWM value
int blue = 0;

// indicates if next byte should be unescaped
boolean escape = false;

void setup() {
  pinMode(redPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(greenPin, OUTPUT);   
  pinMode(bluePin, OUTPUT);
  
  Serial.begin(9600);

  // turn on LED on low brightness  
  analogWrite(redPin,   16); 
  analogWrite(greenPin, 16); 
  analogWrite(bluePin,  16);  
}

void loop () {
    
    while (Serial.available()) {
      int rgb = Serial.read();
      
      if (rgb == 1) {
        // end of RGB sequence byte
        // reset pos
        pos = 0;
    
        // process this color
        analogWrite(redPin, red);
        analogWrite(greenPin, green);
        analogWrite(bluePin, blue);
    
        // Send ACK byte so Java app can send the next color
        Serial.print("k");
        Serial.flush();
        
        // get next byte
        continue;
      } else if (rgb == 2) {
        // escape byte
        escape = true;
        // discard byte and read next byte
        continue;
      }
      
      if (escape) {
        // unescape byte
        rgb = 0x20 ^ rgb;
        // reset escape
        escape = false;  
      }
      
      switch (pos++) {
        case 0:
          red = rgb;
          break;
        case 1:
          green = rgb;
          break;
        case 2:
          blue = rgb;
          break;
      }
    }
}

To run the app, first download the project from my Google Code project. I've included the full Java source code and everything necessary to run the app, sans Java.

Next, connect your RGB LED to the Arduino PWM pins, as specified in the Arduino sketch. Be sure to use appropriate resistors so that you do not draw more current than the Arduino can supply. If you need a RGB LED, here's a basic one offered by SparkFun . You could also use separate Red, Green and Blue LEDs and diffuse the colors with something like a paper box.

Now upload the sketch to your Arduino.

If you don't have Java 1.5 or later, now would be a good time to get it. You can find out by opening a command prompt/shell and typing "java -version" If you see something like this then you are all set:

java version "1.5.0_16"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_16-b06-284)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_16-133, mixed mode, sharing)

Before running the Java application you need to open the run script for your platform and specify the COM port of your Arduino:

Windows: ledcolorpicker.cmd
Mac/Linux: ledcolorpicker.sh

The COM port should be the last argument on the line that starts with "java"

Now run the script for your platform:

Windows: double-click on ledcolorpicker.cmd (note: if the window closes immediately, open a command prompt and run the script again to get the error)

Mac/Linux: First you probably need to make it executable: "chmod u+x ledcolorpicker.sh". Now run the script "./ledcolorpicker.sh"

The LedColorPicker application should now start up and be ready to go.

Based on my results, the Arduino processes colors in about 16ms -- that is time it takes to send a color to the Arduino and receive an ACK @ 9600 baud. I've found that the Arduino can process color events almost as fast as the colorpicker can generate events. In my limited testing, only less than 2% of color events were discarded because the Arduino was busy processing a previous color. You could use a higher baud rate but with this level of performance it's not necessary. This translates to the Arduino processing about 30 colors changes per second -- not bad.

You may have noticed that we are tethered to our computer in this configuration. The good news is it's possible to make this solution wireless with minimal effort, using with XBee radios. Using the Arduino XBee Shield configured in transparent mode, you could put your LED across the room or anywhere within range and control it from your PC. In this configuration you would need two XBee radios, 1 Arduino XBee Shield and 1 USB-Serial device with XBee socket, such as the SparkFun's XBee Explorer.